nment,
and General Boulanger was still in command of his army-corps at
Clermont, coming up to Paris, as the Government affirmed, disguised and
wearing blue spectacles, to organise political mischief, and generally
making himself a terror and a trouble to the 'true Republicans,' who had
made a great man of him for their own purposes.

'Eight days before the election, which was fixed for March 25, 1888,'
says M. Doumer, in his address of this year to the voters, "I had no
competitor, and my election seemed to be certain."'

No doubt. The 'Brethren' had arranged everything.

But suddenly the skies darkened! The Government of M. Tirard plucked up
courage to make head against the 'brav' General.' General Boulanger was
relieved of his command at Clermont.

Thereupon the Boulangists resolved to avail themselves of the
impending election at Laon as an opportunity of responding to the attack
of the Government by a demonstration of their strength in the provinces;
and M. Doumer was suddenly served with a notice that the seat of which
he had felt so sure would be wanted for General Boulanger!

It was a cruel and a critical moment. What was to be done? To withdraw
from the contest was to take sides virtually with General Boulanger
against the Tirard Government, and much as M. Floquet and the friends of
M. Doumer disliked M. Tirard, they were not ready to throw in their lot
at that moment against him. So the Brethren, as my friend believes, were
called upon to bring about an arrangement. What General Boulanger wanted
was not to fill the seat for Laon; it was only to be elected to fill the
seat for Laon. Plainly, therefore, the course of practical wisdom, for
M. Doumer was to come to an understanding with the friends of General
Boulanger. So this was done.

The Parisian Committee of the General came into the Aisne, and at a
conference, which M. Doumer admits that he held with them at Tergnier,
it was agreed that after the first balloting, on March 31, 'the voters
who then voted for General Boulanger as a protest, should vote for M.
Doumer at the second balloting, and so elect him.'

The first balloting came off in due course of time. Both M. Doumer, the
Republican candidate, and M. Jacquemont, the Conservative candidate,
were left in the rear by General Boulanger, who received some forty
thousand votes--the election being held in 1888 under the _scrutin de
liste_ adopted, before the elections of 1885, by the Republicans, in
o